EU:

Partial Removal of Saudi Blockade Not Enough to Help Yemenis

Rasa - The European Union stressed that Saudi Arabia’s slight easing of its blockade on Yemen is not enough to stop the country from plunging into famine, urging further measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

News ID: 434744

Date: 13 November 2017 - 21:22

RNA - “The EU urges the coalition to ensure the immediate resumption of the UN’s flights and activities in the ports of Hudaydah and Saleef and the opening of land borders for humanitarian relief and basic commercial commodities,” EU’s commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides, said on Saturday, presstv reported.

“The delivery of life-saving supplies is critical for the Yemeni population and must be facilitated by all parties to the conflict,” he added.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced that it was shutting down Yemen’s air, sea, and land borders, after Yemeni fighters targeted an international airport near the Saudi capital.

UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on Wednesday that unless the blockade is lifted, Yemen will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."

Facing international outcry, the Saudi-led coalition reopened the port of Aden on Wednesday and opened the land crossing at Wadea on the Saudi-Yemen border.

On Friday, a United Nations official announced that the re-opening of the port city of Aden and a land border crossing for dispatching humanitarian aid to Yemen is not enough.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 15,000 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia's deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen which began in April, has also claimed over 2,200 lives and has infected 900,000, as the nation has been suffering from what the World Health Organization (WHO) describes as the “largest epidemic in the world” amid a non-stop bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia. Also Riyadh's deadly campaign prevented the patients from traveling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.

According to reports, the cholera epidemic in Yemen, which is the subject of a Saudi Arabian war and total embargo, is the largest recorded in modern history.

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